


Love in a Time of Poor Work/Life Balance

by bench



Series: The Long Distance Comedy Tour [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5822125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bench/pseuds/bench
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long distance relationships are hard. They are even harder when you have no idea when they are going to end. John and Dave are working on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in a Time of Poor Work/Life Balance

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank AO3 user ButtBunny for the encouraging words that lead to the creation of this fic, and Chair for the ever-excellent beta.

You are just on the cusp of drifting off to sleep when your phone starts to ring about two feet from your head and far too loud to ignore. You go from zero to murder in about point two seconds. It's just after one in the goddamn morning and you have been up since six and you have to be up again in four measly hours. No judge would convict under these sorts of circumstances. It is partway through the process of calculating if you can afford the rocket required to launch a human body into the sun that you remember that your work phone is not only in the kitchen, but shut down. If a phone is ringing near your head then it is the personal phone and you want to answer that… fourteen total hours of sleep in the last five days or not.

 

Without bothering to lift your face out of the pillow you collapsed onto a mere moment before, you grope around on your bedside table. There is the clatter of a pen and other detritus falling victim to your lack of precision, but after a few moments your fingers close around the cool metal of your iPhone.

 

You put it in the general area of your face and say, "ughhhhhhh?"

 

Evanescence implores you to wake her up inside (can't wake up) at what feels like about two hundred decibels because you need to answer the damn thing before you can talk and you are too tired for this shit. You tilt your face enough that you can see out of one eye and swipe the call on.

 

"Bluhhhhh?" you ask.

 

"Dave," John sighs.

 

You become more awake. Craning over to get a glance at the clock now sitting askew on your bedside table, you see that it's 1:21 which makes it -your exhausted brain struggles to do math- that makes it after four in New York.

 

"John, what the fuck are you doing up?" You ask, voice hoarse after a day of hollering at actors, camera people, lighting people, set people, agents… pretty much anyone it is in your prevue to yell at got a yelling, and by the end of the day you sounded like someone on the bad end of a twenty year, two pack a day habit.

 

"Dave, Dave," he murmurs, "you won't believe what happened."

 

"John are you drunk?" you ask, shoving against your mattress until you are half sitting. "Are you ok, do you need me to call an adult?"

 

"Nooooo," he slurs. "Well yes, am drunk. Don't call mom, 'm at home."

 

Your concern is instantly replaced with annoyance. "So if you aren't in trouble, why are you calling me at two in the goddamn morning _during production_ ," you snap.

 

"Dave, no, Dave. I got," he pauses almost long enough for you to believe that he fell asleep. "I got an offer."

 

You grind one palm across your face. "I know every woman and most of the men in the city of NYC want to jump your bones, but that doesn't mean you have to tell me every time it happens."

 

"Not that kind of offer!" he shouts. "A job offer. An offer from SNL."

 

You sit bolt upright. "Excuse the fuck out of you?" you hiss into the phone.

 

"I don't have all the deets," he says and you roll your eyes. "Nothing is on paper yet, but the interest is there and it is real and I think I am going to pass out," he concludes in a rush.

 

"Holy shit," you breathe. "John that is huge."

 

"I know," he cries miserably.

 

"When did you find out about this?" you ask.

 

"This afternoon."

 

"This afternoon as in like twelve goddamn hours ago??"

 

"Uh…"

 

"And it took you this long to tell me because…?"

 

"Because that means I'm fucking stuck here, Dave!" he wails, there is a thump as he throws himself dramatically across his bed. "It means I'm here in New York basically forever and you are on the other side of the goddamn world and I don't want to keep doing this without you! Because if I take the job I'm going to have to stay here in this bloody city. This suuuuuucks," he trails off despondently.

 

There is a long, miserable silence. You had been talking about John moving out to join you in LA. There is standup here enough to satisfy that itch and more than enough work for a talented comedy writer with connections to spare. He could do well here even if it isn't the main bastion of comedy in the states. You could never hope to do in New York what you can do here and John could get close. Not this close, however.

 

"But SNL is like…. Your dream," you conclude, heart sinking.

 

"I know," he whines unhappily.

 

"Shit," you say with feeling.

 

"Shit," he agrees.

 

There is another silence.

 

"Shit," you say again.

 

"I've been thinking about it all day," John says, audibly pulling himself together. "And I still don't know what to do."

 

"And so you called to ask me?" you say, incredulous. "Jesus John, what the hell do you think I would say? Take the fucking job, man!"

 

"But-"

 

"It's not like those assholes work all the time, they have half the year off! Your schedule wouldn't be that different from mine! Fuck, we could take six months out of each year to lounge on white sand beaches eating exotic fruit off of each other's dicks if we wanted to! Don't let me or anything get in the way of something you have wanted this bad, John, don't you fucking dare."

 

You hear John sniffling through the phone.

 

"We already go so long without seeing each other," he murmurs. "Can you imagine going months when neither of us can get a day off?"

 

"No," you admit miserably. It has always been John who came out to see you when things got crazy. He can take a weekend off of the comedy circuit when he wanted to, but production never sleeps. There isn't a stage of the process that you don't have a hand in and you'll be damned if you miss a single thing. There are so many ideas spinning in your head that you haven't stopped once since you made your big break seven years ago which has meant that John has been the one to take the time to come to you. When John gets himself in SNL's weekly death march to get an entire show written, he won't have that flexibility any more. Which means instead of a visit every couple of weeks… without a contract you don't know what it means. But it can't be good.

 

There is another silence punctuated only by the sound of John breathing too hard on the other side of the world. Your heart breaks a little bit. This sucks.

 

"Cut that shit out," you snap, because if you let John dwell on thoughts like these too long he starts to lose it a little bit. "Yes, there are going to be times when we go a long, long time without being able to see each other, but fuck, did you already forget about the six months with our dicks out on the beach thing? All this is going to do is change our, like, cadence. We'll go longer without seeing each other, but when we do meet up it'll be for way, way longer. Think of that instead. Think about weeks or maybe even months instead of just days. We can get really freaky with all that time at once. This whole visiting thing has been pretty one sided for a really long time, am I right? How about we make ourselves a little promise that if you take this job, I vow to take off as much time as you do to make up for it? Because John, shit, John I want this for you almost as much as you want this for you. You fucking deserve it. And we can make it work." you pause, a little out of breath from your impromptu speech. "Ok?"

 

"You are so sexy when you talk about my dick," he sighs instead of agreeing which is not annoying at all and you are tentatively turned on.

 

"Oh," you say, noticing for the first time that you fell into bed without bothering to get undressed. You spare a moment to wish that you had stripped down to briefs like you usually would. Not that this is going anywhere with you exhausted out of your mind and John getting on towards five AM. But a man can dream. At least now that he has woken you up you can go to bed properly. Maybe you can even get under the blankets on the second go.

 

"Did I tell you to stop talking," John says, voice teasing. Your entire body shudders for a second because holy shit there is no way your voice is half as sexy as his. When he gets into the right sort of the mood.

 

"Shit, John, hang on, I gotta-" your free hand goes for the button on your pants.

 

"Did you go to bed in your suit again?" he demands.

 

"I," the word trails on for a lot longer than you mean it to, "might have?"

 

"Dave for heaven's sake," he says, and you can hear his eyes roll. "Would you please take care of yourself?"

 

"I'll take care of _you_ ," you mumble as you wriggle out of your pants.

 

"What was that," John replies a bit too sweetly.

 

"You damn well heard me Egbert," you snap as your dress shirt joins your pants on the floor with a muffled thump.

 

"That is the literal worst come-on I have ever heard," he says over some rustling noises of his own.

 

"Now there is no way that's true." you protest. "We've been dating for how many years?"

 

"Fair point," he concedes. "I'll amend. That was exactly as terrible a come-on as I would expect from an award-winning, internationally-renowned screenwriter."

 

"Thank you," you say, snickering and shoving all your remaining clothes except for the boxers you are wearing off the bed.

 

John sighs as he flings himself onto his ever-creaky bed. "We should both go to sleep."

 

"Should we?" you ask, one finger snapping the waistband of your boxer-briefs. Still nothing there. God you're tired. But you don't want to stop talking to your stupid cute boyfriend, especially when he is all stressed out like this. And not when you think maybe you could help.

 

"Technically yes."

 

"Mmmm, yes, talk technicalities to me babe," you faux-moan.

 

"Dave no, bad Dave," he protests, giggling. "That is not sexy."

 

"You literally just said that my voice is sexy, does it matter what I _say_?"

 

"Some words kill the boner."

 

"Well we can't have that. I am very fond of the boner."

 

"Oh my god, why did I say that, I regret all of my life choices," John gripes. You snicker.

 

"Ok, ok," you say, "how about this?" You pause to clear your throat and John giggles. "John, you have no idea, literally no idea, how excited I am for you. I can't wait to watch your scripts on late night tv. I can't wait to listen to actors saying your words. Are you going to be on screen, John? Holy shit, that might just kill me. The idea of you sharing your goddamn hilarious words with the world on the tv right in front of my face is going to be too much. I am going to jerk off to you on SNL, John. It is one of the top twenty five things I can imagine you doing, and I have a very robust imagination. Would you like me to tell you about the other twenty four things?"

 

"N-no, I think _that_ would kill _me,_ " he breathes. You mentally rejoice over the sexy noises coming over the line. Feeling pleased that you have so easily gotten him going, you snuggle into the blankets and try to imagine that he is there beside you instead of on the other side of the country.

 

"I've made a list, not even fucking with you. It's on my phone and I glance over it when I am feeling sad, because there are already some things crossed off of that list which never fails to make me happy to think about and I know we're gonna do most of the rest of them someday which might be even happier and that is just the stuff to turn a crummy day around. I almost can't believe I get to cross this one off so soon though. I thought I would have to wait for an interview or something to get the chance to jack it to your face on national television. Life goals, John. Life fucking goals. Do you ever wonder why I sometimes start sexting at like eight fifteen AM? Well that is why, I have been consulting the list and goddamn if that doesn’t get me going every time."

 

"Holy shit," John groans, and you cheer mentally. You should have looked at the clock before you started trying. This could contend for the record Egbert orgasm time (when not physically present).

 

"You have no idea how many times I have had to sneak off the set to rub one out after that," you pause. "Well maybe you do because you always hear about it, but I am not fucking around. I am thinking about you all the goddamn time and I can't fucking wait to see more of you so that my thinking can be, you know, acting." The phone presents you with silence. "John?"

 

"Your voice is _really_ sexy," he mumbles.

 

"Hell yes, did I make you come already?" you ask, delighted.

 

"… Maybe."

 

" _Awesome,_ " you gloat. There is another moment of silence while John pulls himself back together.

 

"So what are you gonna do?" you ask into the silence.

 

"Do you mean it about actually taking time off?" he asks.

 

You make a noise that definitely isn't a whine. "Yeah, I mean it. Or I'm gonna work myself into an early grave. Not to mention missing you," you admit.

 

"Then I'm gonna take it."

 

"Good," you say, feeling yourself pulled into sleep by sheer exhaustion. "That's good."


End file.
